Dis‘honourable’ motives

It took these three friends just 45 minutes to wipe out three innocent lives. Tired of "barbs" and "mockery" by villagers after sisters of two of them eloped and married out of caste, the three friends decided to kill the women and set a precedent.

Police said the murders were "pre-planned" and executed meticulously and that the accused had borrowed two cars — a Hyundai Santro, an i-10 and a countrymade weapon for the crime.

After committing the murders on June 20, the three accused — Mandeep Nagar (23), Ankit Chaudhury (22) and Nakul Khari (21) took refuge at their ancestral village Dujana in Ghaziabad.

A couple of days later, when they saw their names and photographs being splashed in the meida, they headed for Dehradun and Rishikesh. It was in Rishikesh that they threw the weapon into the Ganga.

"They conspired to kill Shobha (Mandeep's sister) first and then locked her body in a Santro car. After shooting her dead, they drove the car to H-Block in Ashok Vihar, parked it by the roadside and left," said a senior police officer.

Thereafter, they killed Kuldeep, Ankit's brother-in-law and then Monica, his sister. All of them had been shot at point blank range in the head.

Shobha paid for following her dreams:

Shobha, who had earlier eloped with her Muslim boyfriend but returned home later, wanted to be a model and follow her dreams. She and her youngest sister Khushboo, spotted an advertisement in a newspaper and decided to get into modelling. It was during this time that Khushboo met Ravi, a Kashmiri model coordinator and they decided to get married. It was Shobha who helped her sister elope on May 25 and get married to Ravi.

Mandeep did not trust Ravi:

After he got the news of his youngest sister eloping and marrying Ravi, Mandeep went to the local police station to lodge a complaint. He procured the marriage certificate from the Arya Samaj temple and verified the Uttam Nagar address and PAN card details of Ravi, which were found to be fake. This deepened the mistrust of Mandeep.

Delhi Police to interrogate the three accused:

"We’ll interrogate the three men to know the exact sequence of events and the source of weapon. We have to unearth the entire conspiracy," said Karnal Singh, joint commissioner of police (northern range).